


Ashes

by todisturbtheuniverse



Category: Mass Effect
Genre: Angst, Depression, Friendship, Gen, Grief, Shepday, Suicidal Thoughts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-13
Updated: 2014-04-13
Packaged: 2018-01-19 04:38:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 458
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1455700
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/todisturbtheuniverse/pseuds/todisturbtheuniverse
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Maybe Wrex will do her a favor and put her back in the ground. She wouldn’t hold it against him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Ashes

By the time she lands on Tuchanka, Shepard is not expecting a warm welcome.

It’s not as if she ever expected her crew—her  _former_ crew—to react well to the whole not-dead thing. Two years is a long time. She gets it. There’s the whole Cerberus affiliation, too, which turns her stomach as much as it turns theirs. More, maybe. She wishes she hadn’t had breakfast that morning.

(Maybe Wrex will do her a favor and put her back in the ground. She wouldn’t hold it against him.)

”The clan leader wants to speak with you,” the overcaptain growls. “Talk to him soon, alien. If we decide you’re not welcome, you’ll know just before we kill you.”

Odd. She would have sworn she was about to throw up not ten seconds ago. Now it just feels like she has no stomach at all.

Mordin and Grunt are quiet behind her. She feels the salarian’s distraction, the krogan’s hazy rage. They don’t notice her sweating through her armor—or if they do, they’re kind enough not to comment on it.  _Goddess_. She hopes that Wrex will be kind enough to kill her. She can’t stand stoic through another debate about her motives and actions. She can’t defend herself any longer. There’s nothing to defend: just a husk.

"Halt. You must wait till the clan leader summons you. He is…in talks."

She stands still, hands useless at her sides, and looks past the guard to the throne made of rubble.

He looks bored. She half-smiles at the sight of that expression on a krogan face, which better conveys  _murderous_  than  _weary_. His eyes follow the pacing figure before him. Just as the krogan turns, his eyes slide over to her.

She waits, numb. Wrex will not bother to slander her. Wrex will kill her and be done with it.

He waves aside his guest, steps down from his throne. “Shepard,” he says.

She sees the most peculiar thing: krogan lips pulled up in the scarred semblance of a smile.

"Good enough?" she asks the guard, and doesn’t wait for an answer before shouldering past him.

"Shepard," he says again. He clasps her hand with enough force to bring feeling back into her arm. "My friend." His hand thumps into her shoulder, hard enough to dislocate it, and one squeeze pops the joint back in. "You look well for dead, Shepard. Should have known the void couldn’t hold you."

Wrex doesn’t kill her.

It’s the best birthday present she’s ever been given, she thinks—a new lease on life that has nothing to do with muscle or blood or bone. She smiles back, heart sluggish in her chest, but beating. Alive.

Not bad, for a woman made of ashes.


End file.
